


Star-crossed

by the_cloud_whisperer



Series: Cloud's Zukaang Fics [11]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Astronomy, Chinese Language, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Stargazing, Zukaang - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_cloud_whisperer/pseuds/the_cloud_whisperer
Summary: "Sleep heavily and know that I am here with you now. The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first, and settles in as the gentle present. This now, this us, we can cope with that. We can do this together, you and I. Drowsily, but comfortably." -Welcome to Night Vale, episode 12: "The Candidate"After an uncomfortable meeting with the Mother of Faces, Aang summons guardian spirits from among the stars to watch over Zuko's troubled dreams. Featuring protective Aang, cute baby animals, and absolutely smitten Zuko.
Relationships: Aang/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Cloud's Zukaang Fics [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1219487
Comments: 24
Kudos: 182





	Star-crossed

**Author's Note:**

> For new A:tla fans, spoilers from post-series comics are included here for context. In _The Search_ , the Mother of Faces is a spirit, the mother of Koh the Face-stealer, who granted a new face to Zuko's mother. In _Smoke and Shadow_ , the Kemurikage are vengeful spirits whom Azula and coconspirators impersonate in a plot to manipulate Mai's father and other loyalists into rebelling against Zuko. 
> 
> This fic takes place during _Smoke and Shadow_ but alters the premise and timeline. In this universe, the Mother of Faces originally gave the Kemurikage faces to a number of women whose children were killed by tyrannical war lords hundreds of years ago. They used these faces to aid their vengeance and gave them back after it was exacted. Seven years after Fire Lord Ozai's defeat, Zuko and Aang journey to Forgetful Valley, where the Mother of Faces resides, to find out more. 
> 
> See the end notes for explanations of references made in the text.

**ZUKO**

In all other contexts, Forgetful Valley is a paradise on earth, a lush, verdant expanse dotted by lychee groves, serene ponds clear enough to reflect the clouds, bumblebees drowsing in fire lilies after feasting on sweet nectar. The weather is perfect, temperate with a pleasing breeze stirring Zuko's hair, the sun neither too weak nor too strong. It's lovely to get away from the palace and relax for a bit. Unfortunately, he and Aang are here on business.

He's not sure what he expected: something more recognizably maternal, perhaps, but some exceptions can be made for a spirit who apparently sculpted the face of every living thing in creation. The Mother of Faces has at least five distinct visages (not counting the ethereal ones floating among her aura), oddly carved into the tree-like frame of her physical vessel. Zuko shakes his head like a discombobulated Komodo rhino, unable to think coherently before this unearthly being. Everything about her is just… ineffable.

Beside him, Aang seems to have fewer reservations about liaising with the strange talking tree, probably something to do with being the Great Bridge and therefore on good terms with all spirits.

"Who dares to disturb the sacred waters of the valley's pools?" the spirit demands. Her voice is ancient as the earth itself. In it can be heard the creak of the backbone of every mountain ever raised, the howl of every gust of wind, the song of every bird and cicada that ever flew carefree through the air.

"Ah, sorry about that!" Aang raises his hand and waves as if unsure if the spirit can see them all the way down here. "You see, uh, we had a question for you, O Great Motherly Maternal Mother of Faces, Matriarch of All Visages, Masks, and Adornments, Holy Lady of—"

Aang has the potential to go on for quite a while when it comes to nervously fabricating fancy titles. Zuko, Fire Lord, his Fiery Fieriness of Flame and Flammability, Hotman Imperial, would know. It's kind of endearing, but Zuko senses that this is going nowhere, so he interrupts.

"Mother of Faces, we're sorry to bother you. Recently, sightings of the ancient Kemurikage have popped up where they have not been seen in ages. Everyone thought they were lost to history, in fact. We were hoping you might be able to tell us if you were the one who lent them their faces as you once did, and why."

"The Kemurikage have not walked this earth for centuries. They returned their faces to me once they fulfilled their vengeful purposes," the Mother of Faces intones. "Those who don their faces today are impostors."

Zuko and Aang exchange glances, the spirit's answer further complicating this mystery. So the Kemurikage are not truly involved in the capital's recent kidnappings, but rather human perpetrators masquerading as spirits to instill fear in the populace. Zuko's heart sinks; he should have inferred this earlier. Why would the spirits imbrue themselves with the political unrest of his reign? After all, they care nothing for petty human affairs. He shouldn't have troubled Aang with this matter.

At once, he feels a light squeeze on his shoulder, Aang's touch soothing, without reproach. "Don't worry. I'm still going to help you figure out who's behind this."

Of course he can count on Aang to be so gracious and forthcoming in spite of everything. He lets himself lean into that touch, seeking to prolong it, unconsciously or not.

The Mother of Faces looms over them, not finished with what she has to say. "Once a season, in human terms, it is my tradition to grant a new face, a new beginning of sorts. Yet thus far, I have found nobody wandering the valley in search of my services. It is most aberrant," she muses. "It seems a shame to walk the earth so briefly and return without bestowing any faces."

"Well, maybe everyone's happy with what they've got on already. That's a good thing!" Aang rejoins with some effort. It's as if the spirit _wants_ to exchange someone's face, stir things up a bit. Surely she can just call it a day and go home without worrying about her face-changing quota.

She peers down at Zuko more closely. "Who are you?"

"Uh…" He struggles to introduce himself, not sure what context a spirit would need to understand the conventions of the human world. "I am Fire Lord Zuko, the … uh… commander-in-chief of these islands, of the conjoined lines of Sozin and Avatar Roku." The more he rambles, the more ridiculous it seems to boast of his puny human qualifications to a literal creation spirit. Aang's extravagant made-up titles seem refined and well-mannered in comparison.

"Strange that your people should suffer their lord to bear such a disfiguring scar," the spirit says dispassionately. Behind her, Aang exaggeratedly mouths, ' _Rude!'_ in reaction to her insensitive comment.

Well, Zuko's kind of used to it, so he ignores this. "Yeah, that happened before I became Fire Lord."

"I can give you a new face," she intones as one long, tendril-like branch of her hands unfurls itself. At the end of its length rests a face just like Zuko's, but before he received his scar. "Do not be afraid. You need only say the word."

 _That's not how things work though, is it?_ He stares in disbelief at the ethereal face inches from his own, one that ceased to be familiar ten years ago, when the scar became his permanent companion. _You don’t get something for nothing in this world._

* * *

**AANG**

"A few years ago, I passed an edict banning Agni Kais with the intent of being fought to death or disfigurement. I'm surprised they'd been allowed to go on for so long, considering the traditional emphasis on keeping the body whole and undefiled."

Zuko rests his head on Appa's leg, looking ready to turn in for the night, but his pensive voice makes Aang think they're in for a long, gloomy conversation.

"But I suppose that was the point: to punish the loser irreversibly. Tattooing and shaving the head were also used as milder forms of corporal punishment for criminals."

"What?" Aang exclaims, running his hand over his own smooth scalp and arrow tattoos. "That was considered punishment?"

"Well, it's different between our people," Zuko explains patiently. "To cut your hair or leave permanent marks is to dishonor the gift of the flesh and blood given to you by your parents. For you Air Nomads, your tattoos are a mark of honor and mastery. Your shiny bald heads signify one less attachment to this world."

"You still cut your hair, though," Aang points out. "I barely recognized you when you showed up in that ghost town in the middle of nowhere after Azula tracked me down, remember?"

Zuko gives him a significant look, the slant of his eyes sharp and cutting in the sheer moonlight. "You didn’t recognize me just because my hair was shorter? You didn’t recognize _this_?"

He touches the scar that he didn’t surrender to the Mother of Faces today, the mark from his father that he's kept all these years.

Aang drops his eyes, ashamed. "Sorry," he mutters. "Figure of speech, I didn’t think before I spoke."

"It's alright." He shrugs, more affected than he wants to let on. "As for capital punishment, execution by poisoned wine was typically reserved for members of the royal family only. Regular citizens would be executed by hanging, beheading, or you know, my favorite." He touches the scar again. "With poison, your body would still remain whole, as opposed to breaking your neck or losing your head entirely. It was considered a more merciful way to die."

"Okay, okay, I get it." Aang cuts him off hurriedly, stomach not quite interested in the gory details.

"Anyways, bedtime story's over, good night," Zuko says shortly, rolling over to face away from him. "Sweet dreams."

_After a bedtime story like that? Not likely._

Aang keeps a vigil over Zuko's sleep, troubled by what they've discussed. He knows he's being naïve. These gruesome penalties must predate Sozin's reign and were likely around even when Aang was twelve years old, roaming the streets with Kuzon. He just had the privilege of never being directly affected by and therefore blissfully unaware of them.

Zuko, on the other hand, has had to live with Ozai's mark for years, yet he renounced the chance to get rid of it today. Aang wonders if he still thinks of it as a mark of punishment and disfigurement, a dishonor he must suffer, or if he retained it because it signifies all that he survived and overcame.

"For what it's worth," he says under his breath, so as not to wake Zuko, "I think you're beautiful, scar or no scar. I've always thought so."

The long night is lonely, and he wishes Zuko hadn't gone to sleep so early. He drifts, half awake and half asleep, between the outside world and his Avatar spirit. The Avatar's love is hard to qualify as a blessing or a curse, his past lives counsel him.

 _My betrothed lost her face because of my arrogance,_ Kuruk says. _Koh stole her from me because she was mine—she could have been spared this tragedy._

 _In the springtime of our friendship, Sozin was in all ways like the comet: brilliant, awe-inspiring, alluring,_ Roku says. _I made the mistake of maintaining that misguided affection and loyalty well past the time I should have stopped him. Do not let the brightness of your love overshadow your duty if he should follow in Sozin's footsteps._

 _He will not,_ Aang thinks. _We've been over this. We won't let things get that far. He has me to look out for him._

 _Love who you will,_ Kyoshi says, less antagonistic than usual. _I lived to be two hundred and thirty, and I still believe life is too short to waste denying your heart._

 _He dreams of you,_ Yangchen says. _Reach out and you will see. He needs you._

Aang opens his eyes, resurfacing from his spiritual wanderings. Zuko's breathing is indeed heavier than normal for peaceful sleep. One fist lies clenched over his chest; his eyes dart back and forth behind closed lids, fearfully watching some unseen enemy. His lips move wordlessly, too quiet to hear until Aang draws closer.

"Please, no…" he whispers. "Father, please!"

Grief and fury lance through Aang's heart. Ozai still haunts his son's dreams long after he's been put away for good. He moves without thought to shake Zuko awake, then pauses, thinking better of it. If he wakes Zuko from the throes of a violent dream, he might lash out, frightened and unaware of reality. Aang doesn’t worry for his personal safety, but he knows Zuko would feel guilty to distraction if he accidentally hurt him. Plus, it's always awful to rise from unpleasant dreams and lie awake for hours afterwards ruminating on them. Aang's had that experience more times than he cares to count.

What can he do, though, if Zuko doesn’t wake naturally? Unable to keep watching him in the agony of his dreams, Aang looks up to the stars for guidance.

Monk Gyatso once told him that kindly spirits dwell among the stars, watching over the world below. Aang had never questioned it or tried to find out more, but maybe there's something he can do as the Avatar.

The night sky over the Fire Nation is different from the view he enjoyed in the Southern Air Temple, but over the years, he's spent enough nights at various latitudes to piece together a map of what stars shine overhead. He forms a picture of them in his mind and closes his eyes, pressing his fists together in deep meditation.

 _O spirits that listen from the heavenly vault, hearken to the Great Bridge,_ he prays _. Guard my friend in sleep and troubled dreams as I can only guard him in wakefulness. Do not let him wander alone, afraid, without respite in slumber._

He does not know where the words come from, only that he has recited them many times before in a thousand different lives, for others similarly plagued by nightmares. Above him, stars wink out one by one, forsaking the celestial sphere for the spiritual, and Aang begins to slip away as well.

* * *

**ZUKO**

He has been here too many times in his dreams, reliving the Agni Kai over and over ad nauseum. Recently, however, the scene has changed. All too often, Aang is there with him in the Agni Kai chamber, standing between him and Ozai.

So it is tonight: Zuko trembling on the ground, Aang standing tall, staff in hand, regally staring down the Fire Lord. He knows how this ends, though: flames raging high, unchecked, until he wakes choking on smoke and tears.

"Aang, go! Leave this place, run!" he gasps, forcing the words out. Aang does not have to share his fate; for the sake of the world, he cannot die here. _Leave me behind, go!_

"No. I've abandoned the people who needed me once before. Not again," Aang says, resolute as Ozai approaches, elevated to gigantic proportions in Zuko's mind's eye. "I won't leave you."

He looks up and up into the face of his adversary and notes that his father bears the same scar as he does, the left side of his face irreversibly marred. With dawning, horrific understanding, he intuits that it is not Ozai at all, but himself that he needs protecting from.

"Aang!" he all but shrieks as his dream self draws one hand back, prepared to strike. The taste of iron is thick in his mouth, ears ringing with the violent drumbeat of his heart. He squeezes his eyes shut in denial of the end, and all is a tumultuous inferno, just like before—

—until he opens his eyes, the air clear of smoke and searing flame, and a long, sinuous shape twines in a circle around them, shielding them from the fire. He stands, reeling from the suddenness of their salvation, and catches himself on Aang's arm.

"The Azure Dragon," Aang says in response to his unspoken question. He dares to look, and indeed, the shining blue scales do not lie. But how… how is this possible?

They are no longer in the Agni Kai chamber, but in a lonely field at night, a crescent moon ceding weakly to the brilliant stars. The Azure Dragon unravels itself from their periphery and settles, grandiose and stately, into a nesting pose, prepared to ward against any dangers.

"Aang, what's going on?" At his side, Aang doesn’t seem at all nonplussed by this strange turn of events. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere no one can hurt you."

He's still holding onto Aang's arm, blue tattoos threading their way down his skin, a different shade but of the same comforting quality as the dragon coiled nearby. Familiar, beloved, and he tries not to let his fingers trail down their long path as he unhands Aang.

"The Azure Dragon?" he questions again. "As in, _the_ Azure Dragon? It's not the one we met on the Sun Warrior's island?"

Even as he speaks, he knows it's true. Seven distinct patches of scales twinkle white-hot along the length of its body, corresponding to the seven stars of the constellation. They shimmer like diamonds, pure and crystalline.

"No, I wouldn’t dare to summon one of those two." Aang sighs, thinking of the dragons' grim fate. "I don’t think it's safe for anyone else to know about the dragons just yet."

Zuko nods. "Their egg hasn't even hatched. We don’t know for sure that we can save their species."

"Mm."

They stand in silence for the span of a few breaths, the dragon calmly regarding them, almost somnolent in the tranquility of its gaze. Zuko’s racing heart slows, the night air cooling his inflamed nerves, bidding him relax as Aang hm's thoughtfully.

"Speaking of nearly extinct species…"

He reaches up towards the heavens, one hand extended in supplication, and like candles extinguished, seven stars gathered in a cluster wink out and reappear in his hand. Zuko watches, fascinated, as their light bends and warps into a familiar shape.

" _Mao_ , the seven baby sky bison," Aang says, and lo—seven miniature bison gambol in the grass around them, each studded in the forehead with a single, tiny star. They are too young to fly much higher than waist-height, hovering a few feet in the air before flopping back down to the ground with a muffled _fwump._ "And their mother, _Bixiu_."

A brighter star flashes in the sky, its glow faint orange, and at Aang's summons, it resolves into the shape of a fully grown sky bison who settles down next to the Azure Dragon, watching over her young as they frolic.

One baby bison stumbles over to Zuko, butting its head against his side. He runs one hand over its head, stubby horns still short and blunt. With a concerted effort, it flaps its tail to levitate at eye level, managing to stay airborne for a few seconds before giving out and tumbling into his lap, damningly adorable.

"Hey buddy," he murmurs, petting its back, tracing the brown markings on white fur, reminiscent of the Air Nomads' tattoos. "What's your name, little handsome?"

"You know, I was almost named for this constellation," Aang says, sitting a few feet away and similarly blessed with tiny bison climbing all over him. "It looks very similar to my name in writing."

"Avatar Mao?" Zuko wrinkles his nose, decidedly not a fan. "I prefer you just the way you are."

 _Well, that couldn't have been phrased worse._ He awkwardly glances over, hoping the airbender hasn't noticed Zuko's slip of tongue, only to suffer a punch to the gut as tears gather in Aang's eyes.

Oh no. _Oh no…_ "Aang…?" he ventures. "Sorry, I didn't mean to insult…"

Aang shakes his head, the movement dislodging his tears, which trickle down his face in heartbreaking tracks. "No, it's not that. I just… got a bit emotional seeing the sky bison. Appa's the only real one left, after all."

Another bison squirms up Aang's torso to lick at the tears gracing his cheeks, salt and grief admixed. Zuko sighs and wiggles over the few feet separating them, careful not to dislodge the bison currently napping in his lap.

"I wish it weren't so," he says quietly. With a gentle arm around his back, he pulls an unresisting Aang to rest his head on his shoulder. "You've done so much for the world. The least it can do for you is see the return of your people and the sky bison and all that you hold dear."

"How can it, though?" Aang despairs. The tears have reached his voice now, and Zuko doesn’t know if he can resist the moisture springing to his eyes either. "They're all gone, and it's my fault."

"It's not," Zuko says fiercely. He's been focused on his own worries and the Fire Nation's struggles for so long that he hasn't given any thought to Aang's dilemma. "If you had died back then, who knows how different the world would be? Maybe I wouldn’t even be here today. We never would have met. You never would have saved my life many times over. And you wouldn't be here in my dreams."

Aang nestles his head more firmly onto Zuko's shoulder, jostling him slightly. "Still wouldn't change anything. The monks, they're all gone, and the lemurs, and the bison, and the temples… just empty ghost towns. They can never come back."

It's the most despondent he's ever heard Aang sound, and this isn't right. He will not let it stand. "When I was a boy, I dreamed of being Fire Lord. It's all I dreamed of, even when I was banished and it became nearly impossible. Yet it still came true."

The only noise around them is the rustle of the grass as the bison tumble about, a deep lowing sound from their mother. The rasp of glittering scales as the Azure Dragon shifts in its repose. Perhaps, if Zuko concentrates hard enough, the patter of Aang's heartbeat, a gallop to match his own.

"This is your dream as well," he points out. "You're here with me. Who's to say this," he gestures around at the picture of serenity surrounding them, "can't come true?"

They watch the sky lighten, the moon fading, and Zuko wonders if he should mention what other dreams he has involving Aang. The wily airbender beats him to it, though, ever prodigious even when he's asleep.

"What about this?"

Zuko turns his head, and Aang is just a breath away, grey eyes silver in the dawn light, his face jade carven, superficial flaws cut to reveal the radiance within. His lips are so close, thin and faintly parted, inviting.

"Can this come true too?"

 _Aang…_ He closes his eyes, preparing to give in to the yearning that has plagued him for long enough. They've given everything they have to this world. They deserve to keep this for themselves.

He feels rather than sees the sun slip over the horizon, its warm rays red on the backs of his eyelids, and in an instant, the bison pop out of existence. The Azure Dragon disappears without a trace, the stars returning to the sky, now blotted out by the sun's brightness. Aang fades before his gaze, the scene dissolving around them as he looks on helplessly.

* * *

**AANG**

They wake without fanfare, coaxed from sleep by the sunrise, and Aang blinks at the face just inches from his own. Lovely, always so lovely.

"Sweet dreams?" he asks, echoing the bitter blessing evoked before they went to sleep. He's not sure if Zuko will remember, and he doesn’t want to make any advances under misguided presumptions.

"Yes, they were." Zuko's voice is thick with slumber, warm and rounded, nothing like the usual sharp, crisp syllables that personify the Fire Lord's diction. "But they would be sweeter if they came true."

_Oh, Zuko._

Their kiss is replete with notes of golden sunlight, sweeter than any wine, warmer than any tea, full of every ounce of love and devotion either of them can summon. It is… oh, _guru—how_ is it possible to feel this dizzy when they are lying firmly on stable ground? Oh right, oxygen requirements.

"Thank you," Aang says when he's relearned how to use his tongue for speaking and not just kissing. "For not letting me lose hope. For reminding me why we have dreams in the first place."

"We can do this together," Zuko says, drowsily, comfortably, eyes half-lidded in a wide smile, left eye almost completely shut. "You and I, we're always better together."

They lose the rest of the sunrise to further explorations of the meaning of 'together'. High above, unseen amid the sun's glory, a dragon and several sky bison look down in adoration, drenching them in blessings for the future.

**Author's Note:**

> In Chinese astronomy, there are 28 constellations that hold special significance because they are the star clusters through which the moon passes in the course of the 28-day lunar month. They are called the 28 mansions, divided into 4 7-day weeks, and one celestial guardian presides over each week. 
> 
> The Azure Dragon presides over the first 7 mansions. Thus, it is not actually a constellation of 7 stars, as presented in the story, but rather 7 star clusters, each of which contains multiple stars. The details of the 7 mansions weren't important to the plot, so I left them out to avoid complicating things, but more information on the different mansions and what they represent can be found here: [1](https://www.chinasage.info/stars.htm), [2](http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/chinese.htm).
> 
> The other two constellations are _Mao_ and _Bixiu_. _Mao_ is the 18th lunar mansion, and the Chinese equivalent of the Pleiades, which are part of the Greek constellation Taurus. _Bi_ is the 19th lunar mansion and contains Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus; _xiu_ just means 'mansion' and I added it on to make the name sound more complete. 
> 
> I did a little mixing and matching of Chinese and Greek astronomy here, because according to sources, _Mao_ represents a "hairy head" and _Bi_ represents a net ([3](http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/taurus2.htm#chinese)). The mythos underpinning these representations is very ancient and obscure, so I decided to go with the more familiar interpretation of Taurus, the bull, which is kind of like a bison, right? So the 7 stars of the Pleiades became 7 baby bison, and the giant Aldebaran nearby became their mother. 
> 
> _Mao_ does actually look a lot like the second character of Aang's name. For comparison: 
> 
> Aang = 安昂 (ān áng; 'peace, soaring')  
> Mao = 昴 (mǎo)
> 
> If you look closely, _mao_ has one extra stroke than _ang_ , hence why Aang jokes that he was almost named Mao instead. I'm not sure how I came upon this word in my research, but serendipitously, I had started a habit of stargazing during quarantine, and these were some of the first stars I identified with my amateur star map on my phone thanks to their proximity to Venus in my part of the hemisphere.
> 
> If you liked this fic, check out some of my other works! Find me on other social media via [my Tumblr](http://the-cloud-whisperer.tumblr.com)!


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